More Watt?!

If you've been forced to deliver Linux magazines to pay for your last electric bill, we’ll help you discover why, assuming you have a state-of-the-art electricity meter.

Just a couple of years ago, my electricity bill was something the utility company really enjoyed. It more or less confirmed that I was just a couple of kilowatt-hours away from qualifying for the discounts given to large-scale industrial power users. At the time, my household had just two adults, a baby, and two 19-inch racks.

My comment at the time: “You see what bottle warmers and baby monitors can do to you!” My sweetheart has a sense of humor, but this financial electric shock generated some awareness on my part. Now, when I buy new hardware, I make sure I’m getting a computer rather than an electric heater.

If you do not receive a response to a ping, or if the response is seriously delayed, you might like to take this as a warning. But who wants to ping all day? You need a ping-based monitoring utility like Smokeping.